Tag: flowers

Hostas! And Little Purple Thingies!

I love hostas. Easy to take care of, can survive a variable climate. The flowers, well, they

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Every single one came back! I am enormously pleased. They’re looking wonderful.

don’t do very good in the flower department, but that’s not why I grow them. It’s the foliage. Over the years growers have developed dozens of different varieties with a huge assortment of different types of foliage; yellow, striped, speckled, different shades of green, different leaf shapes. They’re great fun.

A couple of years ago I ripped out the entire front mess between the house and the sidewalk and put in a hosta bed. Even went to a professional hosta grower to get the plants. Spent way too much money. And much to my surprise, every single one of them has been doing beautifully up there, surviving the cold, the rain, the snow, the ice. Great plants, hostas.

Was out walking with MrsGrouch (She’s not really a grouch, just the opposite, but this isIMG_0234 Grouchyfarmer.com, so what, I should call her Mrsdotcom?) and we ran into these and I had to take a photo. In an otherwise totally nondescript front yard, this cluster of brilliance was sitting there near a step, this tightly packed cluster of brilliant joy… Wow.

 

Signs of Spring

Despite the cold, rainy weather we’ve been seeing signs of spring outside in the gardens as a few things start to peek their heads up out of the leaf litter, mulch and debris left by the winter.

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Not the best photos in the world but I took these with the iPhone 7. I’ve only had it for about three weeks and I haven’t used it much for photography and I’m still trying to get used to it’s quirks.

It’s certainly better than the camera in the iPhone 6 was, but it’s still not even close to what something like a, oh, a mid-range Nikon or Cannon pocket sized camera could do for about a third of the price.

And unless I’m doing something wrong, the iPhone camera has some rather serious, for me anyway, issues. The color seems off to me. Color rendition actually seems worse than it was with the iPhone 6. Photos seem darker than they should be except under bright sunlight. The autofocus is constantly changing as it struggles to try to find something to focus on when taking closeups.

I’ve seen some spectacular photography that was done with the iP7, but I’m beginning to wonder how many of those photos were taken under ideal, artificial conditions or even had considerable post processing done to them. If I can work up enough ambition I should go out with the good camera and take side by side photos with both the Fuji and the iP7 so I can compare them side by side.

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This image was taken with the Fuji. I wish you could see it full size because the detail is so good at full resolution it would more than fill your entire screen and is so sharp you can count the hairs on the bee’s legs. And the Fujifilm camera I use isn’t exactly a high end camera/lens system and has been out of production for a few years now.

I suppose it comes down to the lens system being used. I don’t care what kind of optical systems they develop for these phone cameras, it comes down to basic physics. A lens that’s not much bigger than the head of a match isn’t going to produce results as good as what I get with something like my Fuji’s macro/zoom lens.

It’s Dark and Rainy so Time for Flowers

Took these this morning

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Taken with an iPhone 7S from the jungle we have growing in the living room. I’m experimenting with the camera in the 7. It’s a significant upgrade from the POS that was in the 6. Still not as good as a ‘real’ dedicated camera, but they’re starting to get close.

Also experimenting with how media shows up here on the blog. Never tried a slide show before. Alas the photos are only showing at a fraction of the full resolution so here they are again in a better size.

IMG_0056IMG_0058IMG_0059Egads, there’s cat hair everywhere, even in the flowers